Wouldn't it be Nice?
by Hikari Hrair-rah
Summary: After the Tournament at the Duelist Kingdom, Pegasus is short one Millennium Eye and is feeling kind of down about life. Until a new problem arises, one he'll have to overcome or die trying. Updated to Chapter Fourteen!
1. Chapter One

Hi. My first story attempt, so please be open-minded.  
  
  
  
Most of the fictions I've seen with any mention of Pegasus seem to be focus on 'Peggy-bashing.' That probably makes this one of the few serious and non-bashing stories in existence.  
  
  
  
I'll be using undubbed names here, and I hereby state that I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.  
  
  
  
Please read on and enjoy!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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Gasping, he woke. What, where was - again he remembered, her beauty and perfection that had been taken from him and   
  
  
now would most certainly never be returned to him. And again, in the darkness, Pegasus J. Crawford wept from his remaining   
  
  
eye…  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
In the morning it was better. Pegasus groggily opened his right eye. As he rubbed it, he briefly checked at the   
  
  
feel of cloth instead of metal on the left side of his face. "Oh, yeah," he mumbled, remembering yesterday's climatic event.   
  
  
The one _after_ the Duel where he'd lost everything. That white-haired…_demon_, for lack of a better term. Some idiotic burst   
  
  
of stupidity had encouraged him to try and win Bakura-boy's Millennium Ring. Pegasus got himself around, only allowing   
  
  
himself one small bitter laugh before ordering Croquet to send up some food. The morning itself really went past in much of   
  
  
a blurry haze, spent paying his Eliminators and firing the majority of his staff. Then he had to tell those dolts on the   
  
  
Kaiba Corp Board of Directors that their little deal was off and that they should expect an angry Seto Kaiba sometime soon.   
  
  
The fact that they didn't seem too worried didn't matter; in fact, not much seemed to matter anymore. So he gave himself the   
  
  
afternoon off, and was somewhat startled to find himself on the balcony with his neglected art supplies. He hadn't painted   
  
  
since Cecilia had died, and not having much in the way of inspiration he just let his brush go wherever it felt like while his   
  
  
thoughts wandered. For once, his mind drifted not to the demon but in fact the Duel. Something had been bugging him since   
  
  
then - going back in his mind, a sort of discomfort that had started up right from the beginning. Back when he had first   
  
  
looked around in Yugi-boy's brain. It wasn't a really big thing, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It didn't   
  
  
matter anyway…Pegasus blinked as he looked at the canvas for the first time since he'd started painting on it. What he saw   
  
  
shocked him. Without thinking about it, he had painted a picture of a woman. Not Cecilia - a strange woman, one who seemed   
  
  
mysterious and exotic. Pegasus wasn't sure who she was, although she seemed very familiar. But wasn't there something   
  
  
missing? He studied the picture, much as he used to when he painted, trying to find that tiny flaw that kept it from being   
  
  
realistic. The hair should be a little different, he decided, and with deliberate strokes adjusted it. There was no way for   
  
  
him to prepare for what happened next…  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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Gomen, but I've only seen the dubbed shows, so I'm waiting for the next part of the 'Dungeon Dice Arc' before getting a serious plot going.  
  
  
  
Please review, it would help me alot.  
  
  
  
But absolutely no flames or Pegasus bashing! (BYA, this isn't Yaoi.) 


	2. Chapter Two

Sorry for the delay - my school seems to enjoy swamping me with busywork.  
  
  
  
Disclaimer: See previous chapter  
  
  
  
Claimer:I own my OC (who will be introduced shortly)  
  
  
  
Those of you that reviewed, thank you so much for your support!  
  
  
  
  
  
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As he completed the final stroke, almost before he'd lifted brush from canvas, the picture began to glow. He backed   
  
  
away, not because it was freaky and magical, but because it was the first freaky and magical thing he'd had to deal with   
  
  
since losing his Millennium Eye. The glow turned into a full-blown flash of light that faded to reveal the woman, standing   
  
  
and looking around with some interest. She was exactly like he had painted, Pegasus thought with a weird sense of pride,   
  
  
before he suddenly blacked out…  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hey, wake up!" The statement was followed by a splash of freezing cold water which did the job. Pegasus sat up,   
  
  
spluttering. "Finally! By Ra, you sleep like the dead," said the strange voice. Pegasus looked around, and his eye went   
  
  
really wide. There was the woman from the painting. "So much for it being a dream…" he mumbled. He saw he was still on the   
  
  
balcony. The woman kneeled next to him. "Are you alright?" "Yes," Pegasus said as he pushed himself up. "Mind telling me   
  
  
who you are?" "Not until you tell me who you are! And where this is," she added with a wave of one of her tanned hands.   
  
  
Pegasus stared, and she batted her dark blue eyes at him until he felt his face redden. "My name is Pegasus J. Crawford, and   
  
  
this happens to be my castle." He stood; she did also. "Now who are you and what are you doing here?" The woman - who   
  
  
looked to be barely twenty - giggled. "In that case, call me Temerith. And I'm here to help." "Help? Help who?" "Well,   
  
  
you obviously!" Pegasus felt a migraine coming on, but remembering his upbringing he just sighed. "Okay, let me rephrase   
  
  
that. How am I in need of assistance?" "Trust me sweetie," Temerith said, "You need all the help you can get." The she   
  
  
turned and walked inside. "Hey, wait!" Pegasus went in after her.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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Opinions matter. Please send them! Thank you!  
  
  
` 


	3. Chapter Three

I'm terribly sorry for the delay.  
  
  
Things kept coming up, and so this chapter couldn't be posted. Please accept my sincere apologises.  
  
  
To make it up to all of you, here is a _very_ long chapter.  
  
  
  
  
Disclaimer: Previous chapter  
  
  
Claimer: Temerith, plotline, etc.  
  
  
  
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Temerith was waiting outside his bedroom door the next morning. "Good morning Peggy-kun!" 'Peggy-kun? What?' "Can   
  
  
I help you?" "Yeah - which ways the kitchen, I'm starving!" Pegasus nearly fell over before pointing the way to her. As   
  
  
Temerith skipped down the hallway, Pegasus was reminded a little too much of a few memories he'd gotten from Yugi-boy's head,   
  
  
of his blond friend acting in this exact manner. Temerith was even blond too, although her hair was long and in a braid.   
  
  
Pegasus grimaced as he recalled the amount of food Jounouchi had eaten during the dinner they'd had here. He went to the   
  
  
kitchen, and sure enough she was eating like a horse. "Peggy-kun, you got some good grub here," she said around a mouthful.   
  
  
"Please don't call me 'Peggy-kun'," he said. "Sure thing P-chan!" After a last bite, Temerith did a flip that landed her an   
  
  
inch away from Pegasus's head. "Don't call me that either!" he said, flustered. "Either I call you P-chan or I call you   
  
  
Peggy-kun. Your choice," she said with a lopsided grin. "Can't you be serious?" "Nope! Oh, and just call me Terra-chan."   
  
  
"Terra-san," Pegasus said with emphasis, "When are you going to explain what's going on?" "Why right now of course! Pull up   
  
  
a chair," she said.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When Pegasus had finally gotten seated, Terra leaned forward with a surprisingly serious expression. "Peggy-kun,   
  
  
what do you know about the Millennium Items?" The question caught Pegasus off-guard. "Not much," he said slowly, "There are   
  
  
seven total…if one gathers all seven they receive great power…" "Yeah, that's what I thought. You don't know anything,"   
  
  
Terra said smoothly. Pegasus frowned but did not comment. "Long ago, before the Shadow Games were played, a Egyptian man   
  
  
came across a necklace. Hanging from the necklace were seven large pendants made of gold. The man discovered that each   
  
  
pendant carried a strange power inside." "What does this -" "Baka!" Terra said, annoyed, "You sure are a lot more   
  
  
thick-headed then I thought you were! Eventually, since the pendants were too bulky to carry around all the time, they were   
  
  
melted down and reshaped into seven pieces of jewelry - one of which you used to wear," she added with a tap of her finger   
  
  
over the eye patch. Pegasus was temporarily speechless. Then he was just plain confused. "Well, its an interesting   
  
  
history, but what does that have to do with me?" Terra grinned. "Because the previous owner of the necklace has been   
  
  
waiting to get it back for a long, long time, and you're going to be the one to stop him."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Me? Why me?" "Because of that," she said with another tap to the eye patch. "Isn't it obvious? Everything that's   
  
  
happened to you is because of that." Then without another word, Terra vanished into thin air. Pegasus sat there blinking   
  
  
for a full five minutes before coming to himself and leaving. "This is making less and less sense by the minute," he   
  
  
muttered to himself as he wandered the halls of his castle aimlessly. Croquet found him after an hour, staring out a window.   
  
  
"Sir?" "What is it now Croquet?" Pegasus snapped at his chief of staff. "I - I thought you might want to see - Mister   
  
  
Otogi has begun a broadcast of a duel with Yugi Motou." "A duel?" Curious, Pegasus went to check it out. Sure enough, a   
  
  
world-wide broadcast was being sent. "Ah, I see Otogi-boy is trying out his Dungeon Dice game against little Yugi," Pegasus   
  
  
said to himself. Shortly before the tournament, he'd invited the lad here and played a game with him. Without the help of   
  
  
his Millennium Eye he would certainly have lost at the complex game. It was well worth marketing. But Pegasus felt dismay   
  
  
as Otogi announced to the world his opinion that Yugi had cheated in the final duel here at the Duelist Kingdom. 'If   
  
  
anything, I cheated,' he thought as it the game went forward. "Ooh, pretty dice!" "Yaah!" Without warning Terra had simply   
  
  
appeared on the arm of his chair. "Where in the world did you come from?" "Shush!" Giving up what appeared to be a   
  
  
pointless argument, he turned back to the duel. It seemed unfair at first, especially when Otogi pointedly refused to   
  
  
explain more then the basics of the game. The whole thing see-sawed madly, more often then not being squarely in Otogi's   
  
  
favor. But what really got his attention was how Otogi kept making references to how Yugi's victory was keeping Industrial   
  
  
Illusions from marketing his game. He called over Croquet, who had been watching from the other side of the room. "Whatever   
  
  
happened to the approval form for that game?" "It's been completed sir; you just need to sign it." "Then go and get it."   
  
  
Croquet went and got it. Pegasus decided to wait until the broadcast finished before signing. Somehow, as Yugi pulled off a   
  
  
stunning upset victory, a sense of déjà vu hit him, as if he'd known all along what the outcome would be. But that didn't   
  
  
sound right, not after losing his Eye. There was no way to know without it. Shaking his mind clear of the thought he signed   
  
  
the form. "Send Otogi-boy an email," he ordered. Then he stood up. But for some reason everything suddenly started to   
  
  
double, then ooze in and out of focus. As the floor suddenly rushed to meet him, Pegasus's world went black.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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For those that are unaware, Otogi is the japanese name of Duke Devlin.  
  
  
I don't know his last name, or even if this is his first name.  
  
  
If you do know, it would be helpful if you told me. And any other comments as well! 


	4. Chapter Four

Sorry for the long hiatus. No doubt I'll be repeating it every single chapter but it has to be said. Sorry!  
  
And thanks for the information. I'll probably stick with Cecilia instead of Cyndia, but thanks for the tip.  
Disclaimer: Yugioh not mine  
Claimer: Teremith mine  
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Voices drifted by him, very slowly, but fast enough for him to miss a lot of what was said.  
  
"…Never seen…advanced case…exhaustion…"  
  
"…Anything…you can do…"  
  
"…Needs professional…this is…I'm not…"  
  
It felt like he was floating and weightless, but suddenly a strange series of images crossed his awareness…  
  
/A bright, empty plain as vast and burning as the sun…and a proud people, making their living by the banks of a weaving river…a place of peace…but there were shadows here, dangerous shadows…/  
  
"I'm sorry, but visitors aren't allowed in here," said a stern voice.  
  
Pegasus lifted an eyelid that felt like a brick house, and was startled at his new surroundings. It was a hospital, and a nurse was telling some people they couldn't come in because he was asleep.  
  
"If you call yourself a nurse, you would know he woke up five minutes ago," said another voice.  
  
Familiar yet feminine, he couldn't place it until the pair of images crossed his blurry vision. Croquet and a woman with long black hair stood next to the bed.  
  
"Sir, how are you feeling?" Croquet asked worriedly.  
  
"Tired…what happened?"  
  
"You somehow became comatose, and have been for at least a week," the dark-haired woman said. Pegasus nodded as he slowly processed this.  
  
"I would like to speak with you in private, if I may," the woman said next.  
  
Croquet began to protest, thought better of it, and went to stand outside.  
  
"I'm afraid I don't have very good news for you," she began.  
  
"Isis-san, please, feel free to sit down," Pegasus interrupted. She sat.  
  
"Do you recall the God Cards you entrusted to me for safekeeping?"  
  
"How could I forget?"  
  
Isis Ishtar gave a knowing smile. "I'm afraid that they've been stolen."  
  
That got him all the way awake. "Who?"  
  
"You have heard of the Rare Hunters, I'm sure?"  
  
Pegasus sighed in disgust as he fell back against the pillow.  
  
"How could I not? One or two nearly got on the boat to the Duelist Kingdom." Those few Hunters had been swiftly sent to the Shadow Realm after being discovered.  
  
"I take it they got the cards?"  
  
"Most of them - I retrieved Obelisk before it was too late."  
  
"Where is he now?"  
  
"I gave him to Seto Kaiba."  
  
He brushed a stray lock of silvery hair out of his eye.  
  
"What in the world were you thinking? He's not very likely to give it back, you know."  
  
"He will; I have foreseen it." Her golden necklace sparkled in the lights in agreement.  
  
"Besides, I needed to give him some incentive to start a tournament. Famous duelists from all over the world are sure to compete -"  
  
"And that will draw in the Rare Hunters," Pegasus finished. "Well, good luck to you and Kaiba-boy, I suppose."  
  
Then the pushy nurse came back in with the announcement of visiting hours now being over, and adjusted the IV's so that Pegasus became groggy and fell asleep once again.  
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Battle City tie-in, anyone? Hmm? 


	5. Chapter Five

Eh heh heh, so I was right. Gomen Nasai for the hiatus again!  
  
Here's a nice long chapter as my apology!  
  
/Stuff inside this/ - dreams, visions, and flashbacks in general.  
  
Disclaimer: Yugioh is 157% guaranteed not mine  
  
Claimer: Teremith is mine mine mine!  
  
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As awareness returned, Pegasus noticed two things: One, he was getting mighty sick of being unconscious and Two, something was blowing hot air on his face.  
  
Upon opening his eye, Pegasus was given a small heart attack as he was faced with a gigantic pool of navy blue less then an inch from his face.  
  
"Time to wake up sleepy-head!"  
  
He groaned as Terra's voice echoed through his sore brain.  
  
"Please, never do that again," he said as he got more fully awake.  
  
"Sure thing Peggy-kun."  
  
They were still in the hospital room.  
  
"Where have you been?" He asked.  
  
"Around," Terra said, waving the question away with a wave of her hand. "First things first, we've got some work to do."  
  
"What work?"  
  
Terra's expression went more serious.  
  
"Well, do you _want_ to keep running out of energy?"  
  
She waited for his response but he was confused.  
  
"Energy?"  
  
"Duh," she said. "Your body had the Eye in it so long that it got too dependant on the energy from it. Unless we fix it you're going to go into a permanent coma by tomorrow and probably die in a year."  
  
That being a very unpleasant idea, Pegasus asked, "What can I do?"  
  
"Very little. But _I_ can fix things right up for you," Terra said cheerfully.  
  
She held her left hand open over the left side of Pegasus's face.  
  
"You may be asleep for a day or three," she warned right before her hand began glowing with a bright blue light.  
  
Annoyed, Pegasus didn't resist the wave of darkness over his vision. He might have had he known what was in store for him.  
  
A series of visions appeared to him.  
  
/The sun shining brilliantly overhead, no worries underneath it. Except for a single one. In a village, a man was weeping over the dying body of his wife. A very small child peeked around the doorway, strange orangey eyes also wet with tears…/  
  
The scene shifted.  
  
/The man whose wife had died was now dead himself. His second wife, with her son from her previous husband, was making preparations. The small child of before was a short yet lanky boy, and now one could see the strangeness of his hair. Down the center a stripe of mixed colors was vivid. Gold, silver, and ruby hair that stood out from the mottled brown-and-black of the rest. His hair was cut very strangely as well, the bangs long and covering his eyes…/  
  
Now another shift.  
  
/The same boy, now a young man, faced his older 'brother'.  
  
"This is my house now," the elder one was saying. "Get out, worthless thing!"  
  
The young man covered his distinctive hair with a cloth before leaving with only the clothes on his back…/  
  
"…Master Pegasus?"  
  
Gradually, Pegasus realized he was awake and that Croquet was staring at him.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Told ya he was awake!" A second voice inserted. "This is totally normal."  
  
The silver-haired billionaire sat up abruptly, only to pause in shock that he _could_ sit up, and so easily. Terra winked at him before vanishing into thin air.  
  
"Sir, how are you feeling?"  
  
"Actually," Pegasus admitted, "A lot better."  
  
He sat on the edge of the bed and tested his legs. Meanwhile, Croquet began filling him in on how Industrial Illusions had been doing since he'd first gone comatose.  
  
Thanks to Dungeon Dice sales, and the release of a few new booster packs, the company had thrived even while it's CEO had been out of commission. On a more amusing note, Pegasus learned that Otogi Ryuuji had been sending in daily inquires of his health as soon as he heard of Pegasus's hospitalization.  
  
He told Croquet to inform the hospital staff that he was checking out and changed into his standard suit once he was gone. Terra reappeared after another moment.  
  
"What next Peggy-kun?"  
  
"Frankly, I haven't a clue," Pegasus admitted.  
  
"Good," Terra said in delight, "Because I do know. Things are moving very quickly. You missed Kaiba's little tournament starting. You need to keep a low profile until it finishes. Got any relatives you've been avoiding?"  
  
Pegasus shook his head. Then an idea came to him.  
  
"I _do_ have one person I _might_ be able to stay with," he said slowly…  
  
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Kudos to anyone that knows who I'm talking about. R&R please! 


	6. OMG its Chapter Six

A loong wait for this chap. Sorry.  
  
Hopefully the next one won't take as long. But as an apology, this one is extra long and probably twice as complicated as it needs to be. Enjoy!  
  
-Standard Disclaimers apply_  
  
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"We're here, sir," Croquet said as he opened the door of the limo.  
  
"Take the car and sell it to a chop shop," Pegasus told him as he got out.  
  
Terra got out as well, only now she was wearing a suit and sunglasses like Croquet's. Somehow, she even managed to keep a straight face. Pegasus guessed it was to bother Croquet, who seemed slightly flustered by it.  
  
"Of course," Croquet said and drove off to follow his employer's unusual instructions.  
  
"Where'd you find this guy, under a rock? He never bats an eyeball," Terra whined, letting her bland composure slip for a minute.  
  
"He used to work for my family when I was younger," Pegasus mentioned, speaking off-handedly.  
  
Pretty soon, Croquet walked up with a wad of a few hundred thousand yen.  
  
"I got a very good price, sir," he said as he handed the money over. "May I ask, sir, what we are doing?"  
  
"Finding a hidey-hole," Terra said, and grandly gestured to the impressive game store in front of them.  
  
The sign claimed it was closed, and the store front was impressively decorated with some huge dice.  
  
"Because -" the next word got interrupted by a distant explosion. "- that was your hospital room."  
  
Not waiting to answer anymore questions, they walked to the door and knocked.  
  
"Sign says closed," a voice shouted from inside.  
  
Not to be outdone, Terra opened her mouth to yell back, then thought better of it and just kicked the door a few times.  
  
"How many times must I tell you," the voice said as the person it belonged to walked up, "We're _not_ -" He stopped to gasp in surprise and alarm.  
  
"P-Pegasus-san?"  
  
"Nice to see you again too, Otogi-boy," Pegasus said with a smile. "Care to unlock the door?"  
  
Otogi fumbled with the keys before he got the door open.  
  
"I thought you were - how did - ?"  
  
"I'll be happy to explain things in a minute, but right now I think we should get inside," Pegasus cut him off.  
  
Quickly, Otogi showed them to a cozily decorated rec room.  
  
"My manager's on vacation," he mentioned after seeing how his guests were looking around at the shockingly empty building.  
  
Inside his mostly calm expression, Otogi was actually on the verge of freaking out. He'd visited Pegasus at the Duelist Kingdom, that was one thing, but now his idol was here, at his own _house_!  
  
'I _knew_ I should have had the walls painted differently,' he complained to himself mentally.  
  
It was too late now, his idol and that guy Croquet had gotten a long look at the paint job, they probably hated it - the female guard giggled.  
  
Wondering what the hell that was about, Otogi sat across from his guests.  
  
"What happened? Most people think you're dead or something. No offense," he added very quickly.  
  
"None taken - to be honest, I'm not quite certain myself," Pegasus admitted.  
  
Before Otogi could ask anything else, the female guard stood up.  
  
"Okay, fine. I'll cut to the chase, as much as I hate doing that," she announced.  
  
She then seemed to glow and the guard outfit was gone. Now she was just some platinum blond in a blue dress.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Not the most intelligent of responses, but somehow it was justifiable.  
  
It was amazing - the terror known as Terra was actually going to sit down and talk sense, it would seem. Pegasus didn't know what to say, he was so astounded - but it was just as well considering what she said next.  
  
"…On second thought, I'll actually cut to the chase later. First Dicey-Wicey's gotta go bye-bye."  
  
'So much for sanity,' Pegasus thought with a sigh. Meanwhile, Otogi-boy didn't seem to take to being called 'Dicey-Wicey'.  
  
"What do you mean, 'go bye-bye?' This is _my_ house!"  
  
"I know _that_, silly," Terra said with her inane grin going full blast, "But you're not gonna be in it for a while."  
  
She waved a hand over Otogi's face. His expression blanked out.  
  
"You're _really_ curious about the Tournament," she informed him, "You're gonna go see everyone, find a nice girl, and then fall off a blimp. Now say bye-bye! Say bye-bye!"  
  
Otogi waved 'bye-bye', then walked out the door. Judging from the flick of Terra's hand, the boy's hypnotized state had been cast off once he was outside. He hoped. It wouldn't really do to leave the poor fellow walking around brainwashed. Speaking of which…  
  
"He's going to fall off a _blimp_? The boy's a little obsessive, I'll grant you, but isn't that a bit much?"  
  
"Ah ah ah," Terra scolded, shaking a finger at him, "That's not for you to know Peggy-kun. I'm not here to save Dicey-Wicey, so unless you fall off a blimp with him he's on his own."  
  
Croquet, to his credit, had not moved or said anything during all of this. Nor did he say anything now. Instead, he merely stood up and walked into another room. Even that man had limits on the insanity he could take for one day, and Pegasus didn't blame him - if he could just figure out how to avoid Terra, he'd have already started running.  
  
"Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the chase! It's later now, so I guess it's okay to start listening to your silly questions now Peggy-kun."  
  
"Hmph," Pegasus huffed, "It would help if you'd be a little more specific about this 'thing' I'm supposed to be stopping, you know."  
  
"Oh, was that all you wanted to know? I coulda told you all about _that_ already! Why didn't you ask earlier?"  
  
Ignoring the sound of grinding teeth that suddenly echoed in the room, Terra sat back onto the sofa and closed her eyes as she gathered her thoughts.  
  
"First of all, you need to know some basic facts about the Shadow Realm. Besides being dark and spooky and filled with dead souls, it's kinda the barrier between this world and another world."  
  
"Another dimension?"  
  
"I said as much, don't interrupt," Terra said, snippy.  
  
"Anyway, like I was saying, the Dark World, as it's called, is the opposite of the World, which humans like to call the Real World (which is very silly and naïve of them), or sometimes the Light Realm (which is slightly more accurate, one would suppose). No human could ever go to the Dark World and survive, but there is something from the Dark World that can come here. That's why the Shadow Realm exists - to block the Dark World from engulfing the World."  
  
As she spoke, Terra grew more and more serious.  
  
"That something is called a Darkie. Darkies have a way more complicated name for themselves, but nothing someone from the World could ever hope to pronounce. As it so happens, in the very beginnings of the three dimension's existences, there was a certain kind of thing that was made of the stuff of all three planes of existence. Gold from the World, Intention from the Dark World, and Power from the Shadow Realm. It was divided into seven large pendent-like thingies at some point (I don't know when exactly) and the Darkies used it to try and get to the World from the Dark World.  
  
"Of course, they ended up in the Shadow Realm instead, which really ticked off their boss, the Darkie Lord, that was trying to get to the World. The Darkie Lord was trapped inside the Shadow Realm, and at some point the seven pendants were taken from him. That was the earliest 'Shadow Game', you could say, seeing as it took place inside the Shadow Realm. That happened back when dinosaurs were still running around, World-time-wise."  
  
"What happened to the Darkie Lord," Pegasus asked after he processed all of that.  
  
"He's still in the Shadow Realm, and has been trying to get out for some time now. Unfortunately the Realm's getting to be very leaky nowadays…but he still needs the seven pendants to get free. Boy was he mad when he found out they'd gotten to the World without him!"  
  
Though none of this was at all funny, Terra laughed.  
  
"And these 'pendants'…are the seven Millennium Items…is that what you're saying?"  
  
"You're only half right - the seven pendants were just some big ol' chunks of gold, all looking exactly the same. But the person that brought them into the World had them all melted down and made into jewelry - something about the original shapes being too bulky, he said. I wasn't paying attention at the time."  
  
Pegasus nodded to himself, and it took a few seconds for him to track on her last sentence.  
  
"Wait - you were _there_ -"  
  
Terra had disappeared again. He sighed, and went to find Croquet. 


	7. Chapter Seven

Hey, only a little over a month for this one. It's a new record.  
  
Disclaimer: Yugioh is not mine.  
  
Claimer: Terra-chan and all the insanity she brings with her are mine!  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Pegasus had decided against staying in Otogi-boy's house while the owner wasn't there - he had a funny feeling that Otogi-boy would _eventually_ remember that he'd left guests there, but that could take days - so he had Croquet make arrangements to head for one of his private properties as soon as possible.  
  
The soonest they could leave was the next day, around lunchtime. Pegasus felt guilty as he ate the food they found inside the boy's refrigerator…mostly. It was just leftover Chinese food, so that kind of took some of the guilt off.  
  
Not entirely certain if he should leave a letter explaining things - in case Otogi _didn't_ remember he had been here - Pegasus came up with a brilliant solution. When Otogi came back, he'd find a short letter that had the phone number for the place he was going, but with the address of an entirely different place, and an invitation to call him up as soon as possible.  
  
Not once did Terra appear during all of this. It was only when Pegasus was sitting back on a chair in his private jet, eye closed and completely relaxed, that he heard the soft 'pop' noise he had come to associate with Terra's arrivals, and felt a very heavy weight landed on him. Pegasus opened his eye and found himself face to face with a beaming Terra.  
  
"Whee! I just LOVE airplane trips! You always travel the most FUN ways, Peggy-kun!"  
  
"How nice of you to say so," Pegasus said, only being a _little_ sarcastic, "Now, can you please get off of me?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
When she didn't budge for another four minutes, Pegasus sighed, looking skywards in exasperation.  
  
"_Will_ you please get off of me," he said.  
  
"I'll have to think about it…well…nah, maybe later. Right now I'm really tired and you're really comfy."  
  
And then she promptly fell asleep, snoring like a foghorn going off. If it was not for the fact that his arms were pinned, he would be tearing at his hair by now. Shoving her off of him did come to mind, but Pegasus had been raised too well to do anything like that to a lady - no matter how irritating she acted…no matter how mind-boggling she was…no matter how much she had started drooling on him -   
  
"Croquet! Come in here at once!"  
  
Croquet stepped out of the cockpit, where he had been watching the pilot, and took in the whole scene with barely a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Yes, Master Pegasus? Is something the matter?"  
  
Years of experience with Croquet told Pegasus that Croquet was trying not to laugh. It was the slight twitch of his shoulders that gave it away.  
  
"Croquet, can you _please_ find a way to persuade her to get off of me?!," Pegasus demanded, wincing as his voice took on that slightly shrill pitch it always did whenever he was upset.  
  
"I don't know, sir," Croquet said, "We should be arriving in half an hour, and she may wake up on her own before then."  
  
Croquet excused himself before Pegasus could stammer any more demands for his intervention, but as the man's back retreated into the cockpit and a wealth of curses he wanted to use for this situation but couldn't passed through Pegasus's mind - so did something else.  
  
~I wonder what his reaction would be if I brought back a blanket.~  
  
The voice was so familiar, Pegasus had to think about it for a while before he realized that it was _Croquet's_. 


	8. Chapter Eight

Heh heh. Another three months and I can post this as a year-anniversary chapter.  
  
But I won't. Because PEGASUS IS IN THE YUGIOH MOVIE! Here's a new chapter in honor of everybody's favorite American billionare!  
  
Disclaimer: Do not own Yugioh  
  
Claimer: Do own Terra, the Plotline, and a ticket to the Yugioh Movie!

* * *

. 

Thankfully, Terra really did wake up on her own, just in time for landing. Yawning, she hopped off Pegasus's lap just as Croquet came back out of the cockpit to formally announce their arrival.  
  
Once feeling returned to Pegasus's legs, he gratefully headed outside. The scenery hadn't changed much from the last time he had been here.  
.

.  
'Here' was a small island that had been owned by Pegasus's family for several generations. Located only two hours' boat ride off the coast of Southern Norway, it had the appearance of a barricaded mountain castle, like a great fortress, rising majestically out of the freezing sea. And it was equipped with many defenses, modern and natural, as well.  
  
Defense was not the point. Littlerock Manor, as the island was generally called, was a place that members of the family usually went to relax. It had been the place where he and Cecilia had spent their honeymoon. And it was here that Pegasus stored the original paintings and designs for every single card of the Duel Monsters card game, most of which had been created by Pegasus himself.  
  
The only place for his private jet to land was a miniscule airstrip that had been carefully carved out of the Cliffside. Then it was a long trip up a narrow staircase to the main entrance of the castle. Pegasus hadn't been here in years, and without its old level of use and care, the whole structure looked older, partially abandoned even.  
  
The point was, Littlerock Manor was secluded and private. Exactly the place for someone as well-known as Pegasus to lie low.  
.

.  
"Yeesh, you sure have a thing for big, clunky castles, Peggy-kun," Terra informed him seriously, before wandering off to explore.  
  
Deciding not to ask, Pegasus got settled in while Croquet started whipping the manor staff into shape, setting them to work fixing up everything that needed repair (which turned out to be just about everything). Settling in was harder than Pegasus expected - he kept hearing strange echoes of voices.  
  
What made things even more unusual was that the voices sounded exactly like all the staff and guards. They would even usually be nearby, but what they were actually talking about and what Pegasus heard were always completely different things, things that could not be mistaken for each other.  
  
This strange puzzle was starting to make his head hurt by the beginning of the third day of his stay. Pegasus cornered Terra in the kitchen and demanded to know what exactly she had done to his head.

.  
"Why? Is there something wrong with it?" she inquired, blue eyes open wide in supposedly innocent curiosity.  
  
"I do not think I would be asking if there wasn't," Pegasus replied, drawing on every single lesson of patience and politeness he had ever learned to keep from growling.  
  
Terra might be annoying, infuriatingly vague, and have some sort of mystical powers, but she WAS still a girl. The most important thing drilled into every male of Pegasus's social class was that you _had_ to be polite to a girl. No matter what, it was the worst sort of impropriety to yell at, threaten, or harm a girl. With absolutely no exceptions.  
  
In response, she stared right back at him in completely fake puzzlement.  
.

.  
His cutely polite mannerisms were why Terra loved to provoke him. She wanted to see that gentlemanly exterior crack. But when a faint grinding noise started coming out of his twitching jaw, Terra sighed. Fun was fun, but she was supposed to help him, and that didn't including helping him develop an ulcer.  
  
"Okay, okay. It sounds like freaky echoing to you, right?"  
  
"Well…yes," he said, "How…?"  
  
"What I can't figure out is how someone like you, who shows a slight aptitude for intelligence," Terra continued over his next partially-suppressed growl, "Could be so oblivious to what's going on. I mean, it hasn't been that long since you _expected_ to be able to hear what other humans are thinking…"

.  
Pegasus took a minute to track on that one. Terra watched closely, almost able to hear the little gears turning and the little wheels spinning around inside his head, before his eye went really wide and he gasped in what appeared to be shock.  
  
"But…you…but, you can't be serious!"  
  
"Honey-bunny," Terra replied with a giggle as she teleported to the back of the chair Pegasus had just slumped into, "I don't get anymore serious than this."  
  
"…Implications of that statement aside," he muttered, "I shouldn't _have_ this power. I lost the Eye. Why would I still be able to use its power if I lost the Item in a Shadow Game?"  
  
"You lost the Eye, you lost the ability to use It's powers," Terra explained, "Work with me on this Peggy-kun…why would you have any powers at all without that Eye?"  
  
"I would have powers if…" Pegasus wracked his mind for a possible explanation.  
.

"Are you saying that this power is - is **natural** for me?!" 

.

.  
"As they say in this century: 'Well, _duh_.'"

.


	9. Chapter NINE!

**AH-HAH!** And _you_ said I'd never update again! (You know who you are...)

In your faces! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Ah, ahem, s'cuz me. Sorry 'bout that.

Disclaimer: Authoress owns nothing that she didn't make up herself.

* * *

- 

"Why are you so surprised by this, anyway?" Terra asked as soon as Pegasus recovered from his little heart-attack, "Don't you know what the Eye does anyway?"

Pegasus, slumped in a chair and eyeing the floor between his feet, didn't answer right away. After a moment of thought, he sighed.

"I imagine this is where I get told, 'Why didn't I ask already?', correct?"

"Wow, you make my job _real_ easy Peggy-kun," Terra grinned, "And just so you know, this is a huge, super-secret thing I'm about to tell you: the powers of each and every Millennium Item are the powers of its users. The Old Users, mostly. Get it?"

"…No."

Growling in apparent annoyance, Terra jumped up and then immediately plopped herself down on Pegasus' lap - ignoring his startled jerking in place entirely - and patted the silver-haired billionaire on the head.

"Well, I'll start with something easy…like the Millennium Puzzle!"

"Easy? Yugi-boy took eight **years** just to solve **it**…" Pegasus mumbled under his breath.

Terra heard him, though, and he was duly swatted on the head before she continued.

"Now, how many people wearing the Millennium Puzzle did you duel, Peggy-kun?"

'How does she even know…never mind, I DON'T want to know…' he thought.

"Yugi-boy, of course…" Pegasus said.

"…Well," he added after a moment's hesitation, "No, I suppose the Other Yugi-boy counts as well…two then?"

"And now, since even in this century, hindsight is 20/20 - 'm still not sure what those numbers mean though - what does that tell you about the Puzzle's power, Peggy-kun?"

This one took a little longer to contemplate. But finally, after Terra was yawning from boredom (loudly and right next to his ear, most unpleasant) and his head was hurting from thinking, a tiny idea blossomed in Pegasus' brain.

"Is it…that the Other Yugi-boy…is the source of power in the Millennium Puzzle?" he wondered.

"_BINGO!_" Terra squealed (also right into his ear, unpleasant **and** deafening), "Spirit in the Puzzle, spirit has the power, Puzzle just aims it! Even when spirit's not a spirit, power and puzzle stay the same."

"But what does that have to do with me?" Pegasus blinked.

"It's no mystery why I need to protect you Peggy-kun, no mystery at all," Terra laughed, "I said most of the old users were powering the Items. Not your happy golden Eyeball, though…its too small to fit anyone inside of! So it just made your psycho-ness work through it, but now you're big and strong and don't need the help anymore."

She patted his head again, and then vanished into thin air - as was usual.

"Not psy**cho**, psy_chic_," Pegasus muttered, before getting up and leaving the kitchen.

He wasn't exactly looking where he was going, so it was no real surprise that he almost immediately tripped over something. After recovering from the shock of his face-plant, Pegasus looked to see what he had tripped over.

Terra was there. She was sprawled on the floor, looking at something. He thought it was one of those miniature televisions that you could take around with you, but it wasn't. It was a strange disk-shaped object that was about the same size.

"Oh, _there_ you are," she said, "Where've you been, Peggy-kun? The cool stuff is just about to start!"

"You only moved about four feet away," he replied, "And what, dare I ask, are you talking about?"

"**This!**" Terra snapped, shoving his head down so that he could see what she was looking at.

The disk was showing a picture of something, as if it really was a little television. And currently on display? Nothing other than a duel match between Kaiba-boy and Yugi-boy…boys.

But that wasn't what made Pegasus yelp in total shock. It was the very large blue monster and the very large - and long - red dragon monster that took up so much space they didn't even fit in the arena where the duel was taking place.

"The Saint Dragon and Obelisk!" Pegasus gasped.

"Yah-huh," Terra grinned, "I barely finished dealing with you before they came out - most excellent timing, if I do say so myself. This is gonna be so GREAT - they so completely HATE each other right now! There'll be monster-blood EVERYWHERE!"

"If Kaiba-boy's dueling, they're only holograms," Pegasus disagreed, "And he'd never traumatize his baby brother with all that blood."

There was a moment of silence. Then Terra and Pegasus both burst into giggles. (_No_ trauma from the inventor of the Death-T, Tournament of Death Extraordinaire? What are ya, nuts?)

"Ooh, shhh!" Terra interrupted herself mid-laugh, "They're going! Go kick God-Monster butt, Sainty Baby!"

"Hmm, I think I'm rooting for Kaiba-boy on this one," Pegasus mentioned, "I'm a bit of a sucker for the underdog, you know."


	10. Chapter TEN!

For your viewing pleasure - and because I was bored - here is a new chapter for you few folks reading this fic!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh

Claimer: I own Terra, the plot, and all the other stuff I have invented.

* * *

So it would be easier to see, Terra did something that made the little disk into a disk about the size of a big-screen TV. The sound was also increased, and so Terra and Pegasus got to take in every last detail of the clash of God-Monster Cards.

And that was where Croquet found them: sitting on the floor, watching the big-screen disk, and eating popcorn that Terra had gotten from somewhere.

"Uh…sir?" Croquet asked, completely confused.

"Oh, there you are Croquet," Pegasus said, "Care for some popcorn? Its got caramel…"

"…No thank you, sir," Croquet replied. 

He was about to say more, but all other sounds were temporarily drowned out by the combination of a roar of thunder - coming from the big-screen disk - and Terra's squeal of excitement.

"HOORAY FOR SNEAKY TURTLES!" she whooped, "In your face, Obbs!"

"No, that magnet's on the Saint's face," Pegasus pointed out.

"What-**ever**," Terra shrugged, "Now shush! If my buddy the Saint Dragon crushes Obelisk, I win the bet!"

"Not if Obelisk defeats the dragon first," the silver-haired billionaire shot back, his subordinate completely forgotten already.

Croquet cleared his throat.

"Oh, what do you want _now_, Croquet?"

None can say how many things ran through Croquets mind at this point. (Not even Pegasus, as he wasn't paying attention at this particular moment.) But the only thing that came out was a question.

"May I bet on both monsters destroying each other, sir?"

"If you want," Pegasus shrugged.

And thus, when the God of Obelisk and the Saint Dragon of Osiris blasted each other to smithereens fifteen minutes later, Croquet became 100 richer. But for the three of them, there was a slightly more interesting detail to take in first.

The blinding light and power of the two God Monsters crashing into each other radiated out from the viewing disk and engulfed Pegasus, Croquet, and Terra in its light. And when it finally cleared enough for them to see, they weren't in Littlerock Manor anymore.

No, instead they were whizzing down a Technicolor tunnel that twisted in a most nauseating way.

"_WHEEEEE!_" Terra cried, from somewhere off to Pegasus' right - much to no one's surprise.

Very shortly, the tunnel vanished, leaving them floating high in the air. And wherever they were, it was bright, sunny, warm, and actually most pleasant in terms of weather. Down below, the ground was dominated by a wide, shining river. On either bank, green foliage stretched halfway to the horizon, where blistering tracks of sand began.

"Oh…we're in Egypt!" Pegasus exclaimed.

"Well duh, where **else** would you be?" Terra shrugged.

"Um…sir…?"

Looking behind him, Pegasus blinked to find his right-hand man floating. Croquet looked visibly upset, which for him meant he was having a heart attack at this very unusual turn of events.

"That's what you get for standing too close to the TV," Terra laughed, "And since we're here, you might as well check this out, Peggy-kun and Muffin-Man."

'Muffin-Man? Now that's a new one,' Pegasus thought to himself as Terra drifted downwards.

Even though neither male present could figure out how to move like she did, they were dragged along behind her by some sort of invisible force soon enough, and therefore didn't have to worry. They floated down to where a few huts made up a village.

"…What time period is this?" Pegasus asked Terra when he and Croquet caught up to her by one of the huts.

"Oh, this is _early_ in the story of Egypt, Peggy-kun," Terra smirked, "So early, later people think its just a stupid legend…You know who the first couple of Pharaohs were, Peggy-kun?"

"…The Gods Ra, Osiris, and Horus, I believe," Pegasus replied.

"Yeah, well, gods make such great organizers that Horus' grandson didn't bother to take up the throne. Everyone worships the gods, everyone works to better themselves and their neighbors, and there's no need for war and almost no call for weapons, except for protection against the crocodiles and hippos. So right now, there's no Pharaoh, and there hasn't been one for the last one hundred years."

"_Amazing_," Croquet breathed.

Terra waved the remark off with a wave of her hand.

"You get used to it," she said, "But like I said, this is early history. You guys ought to know that a Pharaoh had to show up later at some point…so welcome to Some Point, Peggy-kun and Muffin-Man!" 

"Be gone with you!" interrupted a man's voice.

Down below, the owner of the voice - a tall and well-muscled man of twenty-something years was shoving a younger fellow out the hut's doorway.

"This is my house now," the man added, "Get out, worthless thing! You are as dead to me as your weak and helpless father!"

The younger man - he appeared only eighteen at the most - didn't stick around to protest. He headed down the road leading out of the village at a quick walk. Except for a long piece of cloth draped over his head to serve as his hat, the teenager had no possessions on him, save the tunic and sandals he was wearing. The cloth also served to cover the boy's very unusual hair.

For some reason, this seemed weirdly familiar to Pegasus.


	11. Chapter Eleven

I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes...this fic is actually gaining momentum! Not to mention interest.

Thus, I am extremely pleased to offer to you all another chapter. Even though its probably not very good.

Disclaimer: Authoress does not own Yugioh

Claimer: Authoress owns plot, concept, and Terra

* * *

- 

"Ooh, what a nasty step-brother he's got, yeah?" Terra remarked.

She clapped her hands together, crying, "Fast forward!"

The scene blurred. Now it was late afternoon, the village long gone from sight. The weird-haired teenager was standing in the shallows of the Nile River. A white bird - a Ibis? - was flying away from the area, no doubt scared off by the human intrusion.

As the three observers watched, the eighteen-year-old turned to walk back to shore, but was suddenly surrounded by a living veil of shadow and darkness. A veil that thickened and grew wider and darker until the background was no longer somewhere in Egypt.

"This is the Shadow Realm!" Pegasus exclaimed.

"Shush! This is the important part," Terra scolded.

A voice came out of the blackness of the Realm. It was addressing the teenager.

"Hello, mortal," said the voice, "Welcome. Would you care to play me in a little game, if you have time to spare this day?"

Although freaked out by these weird events, the weird-haired young adult managed to recover his composure remarkably quickly.

"If you could kindly introduce yourself, good sir," the man said, "I would do the same. Otherwise, speaking of games cannot be considered proper, I believe."

"Well spoken, and especially for one in your youth," agreed the voice.

The figure that appeared was vaguely man-shaped. But instead of a human head, a black wolf's head with slits of glowing yellow for eyes was what this creature had. His arms were furry as well, and each finger ended with a razor-sharp claw. The wolf-man wore a long robe that shimmered like purple silk in the light of the Shadow Realm.

"I am called Hel-Carasus," greeted the wolf-man, "A lord amongst those who dwell within this Realm of Shadows."

Even more shocked now, still the weird-haired teenager managed to be polite.

"I am called Athorl," the teenager replied, "But in my own lands, I am not anyone special."

"Well then, Athorl," Hel-Carasus said, "Now, as for the matter of the game…it is unfortunate that you are such a polite lad. If you refuse to play, or lose this game to me, you forfeit to me your life and soul. Such are the stakes for myself as well."

"Oh…" Athorl hesitated, "Then, I suppose we should begin."

"In this game," Hel-Carasus explained as he pulled forth something large and golden from a pocket of his silken robes, "We must summon forth monsters. They will battle, and the one that defeats the other wins. Observe my creature!"

There was a bright light as Hel-Carasus wielded the power of the strange golden objects he had pulled out. And then a monster appeared. It was a purple wolf with two heads.

"…That's a Twin-Headed Wolf," Pegasus said to himself.

Athorl seemed to be thinking, before plucking a hair from his head and pulling out from a pocket…a large black feather? It was glowing, and therefore was quite obviously not an ordinary feather. Athorl placed the hair on the feather and concentrated.

Glowing, the hair was shot into the air, and changed shape as it was turned into a monster. A serpentine beast with leathery wings sprouting from just behind its head. Electricity was crackling around it.

Before you could say, 'Thunder Dragon', the Twin-Headed Wolf lunged forward with a growl. The Dragon dodged around its first attack, but the second head changed its direction enough to sink its fangs into the Thunder Dragon's body. Or it would have, if not for the Thunder Dragon's thick and scaly hide.

In the few seconds before the wolf would have realized its critical error and taken the chance to jump to safety, the Thunder Dragon let loose with a blast of lightning. The Twin-Headed Wolf was sent flying, and landed in a heap at Hel-Carasus' feet.

When it got up, it gave Hel-Carasus a decidedly apologetic look, before facing Athorl and bowing in submission. The Twin-Headed Wolf knew, after only one attack from the more powerful and higher level Thunder Dragon, that it was not going to win.

"Oh…so, it appears that I lose," Hel-Carasus sighed, "And as is promised, my life and soul are at your disposal."

Athorl blinked, then shook his head.

"Nay," Athorl replied, "I would prefer not to have your death on my hands. I give you back that which you have lost to me."

"Human youths are really quite astounding these days," Hel-Carasus laughed as he approached Athorl, "Yet, you have still won the service of this fine monster -" Hel-Carasus indicated the Twin-Headed Wolf, which was now sitting side-by-side with the Thunder Dragon - "And these as well, for your spoils of victory."

Hel-Carasus handed over the golden objects he had produced earlier. Each object was a flat, vaguely pyramid-shaped pendant the size of a newborn baby, all strung up on a strong piece of iron chain like a massive necklace.

There were seven of them in total.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Yes, I know its been weeks and weeks since the last update.

But as work on this fic is going incredibly slowly, I have to also update slowly since otherwise I wouldn't have a thing to update for you sillies.

Disclaimer: Authoress does not own Yugioh

Oh yeah, to those who wondered about Croquet's spiffy new nickname - Croquet sounds like crossuiant (which, if I could spell it right, you would know is that cresent-shaped pastry) and a muffin is also baked...and if that's not enough for you, then its because I said so so there!

* * *

- 

Just as Athorl took hold of the necklace of the bulky golden pendants, the scene was drowned in a whirlpool of light, and before anyone could say anything, Pegasus, Terra, and Croquet were back where they started - on the floor of the corridor in Littlerock Manor, just outside the kitchens.

On the big screen disk, the arena where Yugi and Kaiba were battling was visible. Both Egyptian God Monsters were gone, and both duelists were picking themselves off the ground with dazed expressions.

"Of course, **they** saw something completely different," Terra explained as the two of them began arguing over something other than the weirdness she had just given them a guided tour of, "Something silly involving **them**. Anyway, that's not important."

"For once, I completely agree with you," Pegasus agreed.

"_Aww_, that's real sweet of ya," Terra beamed, patting him on the head, "But do you know WHY its not important?"

"…No, but I'm certain you are about to tell me," he sighed.

Abruptly, Croquet's phone went off. While the other two briefly glanced at the big-screen disk - upon which the two duelists could be seen STILL arguing - Croquet received a report from the castle security people.

"Pegasus, sir," Croquet addressed his boss.

"What was that about? An intruder?" Pegasus inquired, before seeing the answer in Croquet's immediate thoughts and cursing, "Damn!"

"I've sent the security forces we have stationed at the manor to intercept the intruder, but there's a good chance they're not working alone and the estate may be compromised."

"Oh very well," Pegasus sighed, "Let's go find a hiding place, then."

Just then, the non-silent alarms began blaring their little electronic heads off. That meant a _lot_ of intruders, and that they were forcing their way into the manor castle itself.

"Or maybe a boat…" Pegasus added to himself as the three of them scrambled to their feet and started running.

Littlerock Manor boasted one of the most complicated interior designs ever to be found in a castle - due mostly to the 'eccentric' trait that popped up now and again in the family - and right now this proved to be the most useful defense they had.

A whole army's worth of intruders was swarming the island. And yet, they were all heading for the top floor of the castle, where important people like Pegasus were expected to be located, especially in such an emergency.

Except that the kitchen was on the ground floor, inaccessible except for a staircase leading to a third floor wing which could only be reached from the basement. Well, by that and the dumbwaiters. But there was a short service entrance to the kitchen section that lead to the subbasement, and from there went directly to the airstrip and docks.

"I can see where that maze-card in your little game came from, Peggy-kun!" Terra laughed, pacing the two running men easily.

"Sir, where do we go now?" Croquet asked when they reached the fork in the road.

"_We_ don't go anywhere," Pegasus said, "You, Croquet, are going to go steal a boat, head for shore, and see if you can't get help back here."

"But _sir_ -"

"Actually, this is a _good_ idea," Terra said, looking thoughtful.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, 'cause they're only supposed to keep you locked up until their boss comes for the Millennium Eye - which lots of people still think you have - and then you'll be eaten by a monster. So it's a good plan not to use a boat that they'll catch in no time," she added.

"…_Thank_ you."

"But sir, who am I supposed to get help from?" Croquet asked.

"…Hmm…I suppose Kaiba-boy's dear old step-daddy must have left a few tidbits or something behind," Pegasus replied after another moment of thought.

He pulled an envelop out of a pocket and handed it to Croquet.

"And when he says no, just remind him that without my stopping it, _this_ little number will be shipping out world-wide in the _thousands_ by the end of the month. You can even let him see it."

"Yes sir," Croquet said, reluctant to leave his boss behind.

"Ah, don't sweat it Muffin-Man!" Terra giggled, "I'll be right here to watch over Peggy-kun!"

"…You are?" Pegasus said, unnerved, "But…Terra-san -"

"NO! You say 'chan'! Chan!" Terra interrupted, slapping the back of his head in reproof.

"Terra…chan," Pegasus finally managed to say, "Aren't you…a little, um…conspicuous?"

"Maybe, but I can fix it," she winked.

She stepped back, clapped her hands together, and threw them up in the air. Instantly, she vanished in a burst of feathers.

What appeared in the feathers was a small, white and blue parrot, who fluttered up to sit on Pegasus' left shoulder.

"Braawc, Terra want a milkshake, hoo-hoo!" she croaked, imitating a parrot's voice.

"Butterscotch, if you've got it," she added in her normal voice after another second.

"…And **when** were you planning on mentioning this little ability," Pegasus said once he got over his shock.

"Ah, come off it," Terra chirped back, "This way, you're a pirate! And pirates are cool."

Pegasus sighed, and counted to five inside his head.

Eye-patch, plus parrot, plus billionaire suspected of insanity…okay, so maybe it WAS a perfect disguise.

"Croquet, you're still here," he said after another minute had passed.

Nodding, Croquet headed for the docks. Once his subordinate was out of sight, Pegasus sighed to himself and turned around, heading back for the castle with Parrot-Terra perched on his shoulder.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Sorry this wasn't put up faster. I've been stuck on something in this story, just a few chapters ahead, and I didn't want to get you guys' hopes too high if I had to abandon my fic.

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Disclaimer: Things made by other people belong to those people, and things made by me belong to me. Obviously.

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Via once again the crazed labyrinth of an interior that Littlerock Manor boasted, Pegasus and Parrot-Terra actually managed to avoid discovery for almost two days.

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And when 'they' were finally caught, it turned out that their 'Boss' was busy with something and wouldn't be able to come out for a long time. As for the intruders themselves, they all seemed to believe that he was trying to hide the Millennium Eye under his eye patch, and thus didn't actually check for it.

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"At least my great-great-grandfather made the dungeons nice enough to live in," Pegasus commented idly a few days later, "I wonder if he knew something like this was going to happen…"

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"Braawc, upholstery and all, very spiffy Peggy-kun, hoo-hoo!" Terra 'parroted' back at him.

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They could talk as much as they wanted to, since none of the guards watching them seemed to notice how un-parrot-ish Terra the Parrot was behaving. As long as her voice sounded like a parrot's ought, they didn't care what she said.

Pegasus thought his guards were actually annoyed with his talking quite a bit, though, which was part of the reason he was talking as much as possible. Whether working on an impossible-yet-obsessive goal or to merely pass the time, Pegasus still enjoyed the effect the right commentary had on people.

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…Then again, who said that the intruders were really 'people' in the human sense?

For starters, they were all identical. Mud-brown skin, pitch-black hair cut short - rather like Kemo's hair, but without that ridiculous unicorn spike up front - and all the same height.

All men as well, dressed in suits like regular security people would be wearing. Couldn't tell about their eyes because they all wore sunglasses.

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But the biggest giveaway was probably that Pegasus couldn't 'hear' a thing from them.

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Having long since realized that this skill was valuable and would probably save his neck in the future, the silver-haired billionaire had been practicing. This was how he knew that the regular staff and the security people - except for Croquet - had been shipped off the island via most of the remaining boats. Once they got a good ways offshore, though, he lost track of them.

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Hopefully, they were okay. Most of them were perfectly decent people. Some of the oldest ones had been originally hired by his parents.

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Otherwise, mentally the whole island seemed deserted. He couldn't sense Terra's thoughts either, but from her he got a light 'buzzing' sensation at the very least.

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"Well, I wasn't going to do this, but this extremely quiet dungeon leaves me with no other choice," Pegasus announced suddenly.

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He cleared his throat.

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"…Ninety-nine hundred bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine hundred bottles of beeeer…"

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Thus passed the next couple of days.

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Once Pegasus finished the beer song, he ran through 'I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves', the lyrics to the theme music for the animated version of Funny Bunny - even though he didn't watch the cartoon show so much anymore, since they changed the voices of some of the characters in the fourth season - and then he sang the beer song again, but with only ninety-nine bottles because his voice was getting tired.

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During all of this noise, the strange intruders did not change their routine in the slightest - except for during the 'everybody's nerves' song, during which they removed and withheld all food and water until he stopped - and there was no sign of anyone coming to the rescue.

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"Braawc, sing the nerves song, its funny, hoo-hoo!" Terra chirped at him when he downed a glass of water in an attempt to sooth his parched throat.

"After what happened last time?" he replied.

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"Braawc, the same words over and over, they don't like chanting is why, hoo-hoo!"

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Instead of doing that, though, Pegasus chose to sit back in one of the comfy chairs - it was unfortunately bolted tightly to the floor, his great-great-grandfather hadn't thought **that** far in advance - and hummed a little tune to himself. He was going to run out of annoying music in a bit, and that would leave him bored AND with laryngitis until the much-anticipated 'Boss' came to deal with him.

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…Maybe the reason the 'Boss' wasn't here yet was because he was going after the other Millennium Items? Hah, that would be entertaining…not for the 'Boss', of course. The Puzzle was useless unless its undefeatable owners were defeated, the Ring was the one going around stealing the **other** Items, and as for Shaddi…you didn't find him, _he_ found _you_.

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As soon as those failed to pan out, though, he himself would most likely become shadow monster food: a slightly discouraging prospect.

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"A hundred sticks of dynamite on the wall, a hundred sticks of dynamite," Pegasus half said/half sang to himself - determined as he was not to give up until the bitter end, "If one of those sticks should possibly fall…"

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"There'll be no more sticks and no bloody wall!" Terra finished, using her normal voice.

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She continued, "We can talk normally, Peggy-kun, the goons all just left."

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"Hmm?"

It was true - they were alone now.

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"What brought this on?" Pegasus wondered, standing up to check as far outside the cell as he could.

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"This happened last night too," Terra added, "You were sleeping, though, so that's why you don't know about that Peggy-kun."

"And the reason being for all that is…?" he prompted.

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"People, silly. Someone sent a bunch of people here," Terra replied placidly, "But the goons got to 'em before they got to this big ol' castle of yours. Guess whatever you told Muffin-Man to do worked."

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"Well, if there's one thing Kaiba-boy can't stand, its public humiliation," Pegasus said, smiling to himself, "I knew I'd get to do something fun with…_that_ card…even if this didn't happen."

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Outside, there was a muffled roaring sound. It took Pegasus a couple of seconds to recognize it as the sound of something large - like a helicopter or a small plane - blowing up. So much for that rescue attempt…how depressing.

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…_Unless_…

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Focusing his attention, Pegasus sent his mental ears sailing outwards. Assuming this was the work of the several people he thought it was…_Yes!_

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Kaiba-boy's annoyance - not to mention his paranoia of all things even remotely realistic - was coming loud and clear. Then there was Croquet's worrying, and…some sort of insatiable appetite, not to mention what sounded like a extremely personal argument by two people with extremely similar voices…

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Kaiba-boy had actually willingly brought along Jonouchi and Yugi-boy…boys…on this little rescue attempt? What sort of defenses had these strange nonhuman people put up outside to bring this about?

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"Braawc, what do we do now, hoo-hoo?" Terra parroted.

Footsteps of the returning guards echoed in the corridor as she spoke.

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"…Wait, probably," the silver-haired man shrugged, "Although rescuing usually works better when the rescuers know exactly what's blocking them from the rescuee…I know!"

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There was a pen and some paper in the cell - a little stash left behind by an artistic child looking for someplace quiet to draw - and so Pegasus wrote a note.

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It said, '_Dear Kaiba-boy (And of course hello to Jonouchi and the Yugi-boys too): SO glad you were able to make it, and I hope you didn't have too much trouble getting here. How is your little brother Mokuba/little sister Shizuka/dear old Grandfather doing these days? Do come by the second basement cell area so we can chat. Sincerely, Pegasus J. Crawford._'

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"I can assume you'll have no trouble picking them up then?" Pegasus said to Terra as he handed her the folded note.

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"Braawc, oh yeah Peggy-kun, can't wait to meet your big tall buddy, hoo-hoo!" Terra cheerfully replied as she grabbed the paper and fluttered through the bars of the cell.

None of the guards batted an eye as she flapped past them and down the corridor.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

I shouldn't be doing this. I really, REALLY shouldn't be doing this.

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After this bit, I have less than a whole chapter's writing remaining to post, **and** I've gone nowhere with this fic. Posting this will only raise your hopes and then you'll all get mad at me when I can't keep the fic going anymore.

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Unless, of course, something else happens...(_coughlucrativebribecoughcough_)

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Kudos to anyone who knows which card Kaiba is being blackmailed with! (_coughhackkaibamancoughwheezechoke_)

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Disclaimer: Authoress does not own Yugioh

Claimer: Authoress owns Terra-chan (patent pending) and all the other made-up stuff that she came up with (patent pending)

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Being able to hear his rescuer's reactions to the note was entertaining. Especially when the other three - except for Kaiba-boy, of course - groaned about the Millennium Eye, at which point Croquet mentioned that his employer no longer possessed said Millennium Item.

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Then there was a ruckus at the far end of the corridor. The guards went to investigate, and then didn't come back. Being knocked unconscious and then locked inside another cell did have that effect on one's location.

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Terra's squawks heralded the immediate approach of the rescue party.

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"You've gotta be _kiddin'_ me!" he heard the blonde exclaim, "Dis is da spiffiest dungeon I've eva seen!"

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Yep, there they were. And Kaiba-boy looked to be in fine fettle, what with Terra perched happily on his head. Croquet was fumbling around with some keys, and the others were gawking at the upholstery.

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"Oh, _wonderful!_ So you did get my note after all," Pegasus greeted them from his chair, "Come on in, pull up a seat!"

"I don't have time for your pathetic games, Pegasus," Kaiba-boy growled, "I've helped you out, now you have to promise to keep that _ridiculous_ card off the market."

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"Oh? And which card was that again?" Pegasus replied, pulling on a thoughtful expression, "You're so sensitive…in fact, Kaiba-boy, what you need is a vacation!"

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He got a growl in response. Mixed in with the growl were the words '_You-know-which-card-you-psychopath_', which Pegasus felt free to ignore. Especially as standing around and chatting wasn't exactly a wonderful option right now.

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Letting Kaiba-boy lead the way back down the corridor - Terra still perched happily enough on his head - Pegasus found himself being besieged by questions that he didn't know the answers to, like what was going on and who had taken over the manor. Remaining cheerful on the outside, he calmly explained that there was no point in drawing attention to themselves with noise, unless they wanted to hear their answers inside of one of the less-nicely upholstered cells in the dungeon, and continued to follow Kaiba-boy.

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Except that Kaiba-boy was completely lost.

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"Now I **know** we passed dis one thing three times already," Jonouchi remarked, further irritating Kaiba-boy and starting an argument on the possible existence (and if so, the maximum size) of the blond one's intelligence.

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And in her usual manner, Terra came to the rescue.

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"Braawc, come on now, we all know you're both equally stupid, hoo-hoo!" she chirped.

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This very un-birdlike response was more than enough to shut the argument down instantly.

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"She's got a definite point, you know," Pegasus made a point of remarking aloud.

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Before this could be fought over, Terra giggled loudly and left her perch on Kaiba-boy's head for one on Pegasus' shoulder.

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"Is that some sort of animatronic bird?" Kaiba-boy asked, eyeing Terra suspiciously.

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/What is 'ah-nah-ma-tron-ick'/ one of the two Yugi-boys asked the other.

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"Kaiba-boy's just asking if this is a robotic bird," Pegasus calmly answered him, thus freaking those two out as well - just to keep things even - before turning to the 'thing' Jonouchi had pointed out in the first place.

That being an old wall hanging. It was there to brighten the hallway - it that very well, being done in all bright colors - and also to conceal the lever that opened the secret staircase on the other side of the corridor.

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"And the reason she - a fully **non**-artificial creature, by the way Kaiba-boy - is right is because you've been lost for the last ten minutes. And don't you try denying it!"

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"Are you going to explain how and why you can still do that anytime soon?" Yugi-boy inquired.

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"Perhaps later. Right now, why don't we all go down here and avoid being captured in the next five minutes?" 


End file.
